September 12, 2016

EP: Betty Kills - Gas Won't Water the Plants

Warding off the end-of-summer blues with Betty Kills.

Betty Kills, formerly known as NixonLove, is an LA-based bedroom-pop group of multi-instrumentalists.
Their newest EP, Gas Won’t Water the Plants, is an emotional lo-fi experience courtesy of SPIRIT GOTH RECORDS, a label that also hails from California and is a self-proclaimed specialists of the dream-pop, shoegaze, lo-fi variety.
Gas Won’t Water The Plants is extremely short as all three tracks are between two to three minutes long. Though it was released back in July, listening to it now is just as fitting as the end-of-summer-blues begin to set in.

The opening track, “Easy Tears,” brings up images of a sun-soaked romance gone amuck as a colder breeze blows through. The band has a way of lazily crooning that seems like you’re sitting around a campfire with them as they stir up a little improv heartbreak song, with lyrics that feel very much like catching the last wave of summer: “Oh San Francisco never loved you better than your best friend drinking in a sweater,” and “I never meant to hurt you, maybe just a little…”
This time of year, people seem less revved up and ready for action, and more chilled out and ready for relaxing, which is why a quickie three-song EP is a nice nightcap to a season rife with high expectations. “Youth vs. Young,” the closing track, has extra-fuzzy guitar and features an industrialized background mash-up of phone dials, AOL internet dial-up, and alien-like electric buzzing, as the lyrics insist “High still, ‘cause we’re still young, ‘cause we’re still young,” with the track fading out quickly underneath all the clanks and fuzz. The track clings to nostalgia but still moves forward, keeping the past in the past, but acknowledging that moving on can sometimes leave you feeling lost in a swirl of changes versus what once was.
The whole EP seems to rest on melancholy, but the composition of the music thankfully doesn’t take itself too seriously, which makes it an easy listen while setting aside some brain space for recently made memories. Unfortunately, the whole thing is over in the blink of an eye, which might speak to Betty Kills’ feelings about the season as a whole.

THIS STAFF POST WAS CONTRIBUTED BY:
Leann Bescript, a recent graduate of SUNY Purchase, full-time nanny and freelance journalist. Generally, she is regarded as the all-knowing 5-second-rule referee in the workplace, or anywhere else that anyone might've accidentally dropped food and needed moral support to eat it anyway.